


always on time and in tune

by mutterandmumble



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Beach Volleyball, Bonding, Developing Friendships, Friendship, Gen, General Awkwardness, Manga Spoilers, Mild Language, god i love these two, not really relevant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 09:47:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20722196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutterandmumble/pseuds/mutterandmumble
Summary: In which there is a game of beach volleyball, and connecting with other human beings can be difficult





	always on time and in tune

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Polaroid by Imagine Dragons. Anyways I loved that color spread. Kageyama and Kiyoko is a very, very good friendship
> 
> Now for other notes: this is kind of clunky and abrupt, and that’s because I’ve been working on it for way longer than 3000 words should take, and I just sort of grew tired. It’s also blatant projection, but I think it turned out alright enough, so I hope you enjoy!!

The sun is sticky in his mouth, dripping like honey and mingling with the sweat at the back of his neck as Kageyama pulls a hand across his brow and lets out a huff. Kiyoko gives him a little half-smile from where she’s standing next to him, spinning the volleyball between her hands until the blue blurs into yellow, and the shape shivers apart and her fingers lace over as under each other into a mess of tan skin and pale nails. He can’t see her eyes- she’s wearing a pair of those reflective sunglasses, so whenever he looks at her he’s really only looking at himself cut up by rays of light- but if he could, he’s sure that they would be as glassy in the heat as his own.

“My serve?” she asks. The breeze tugs at the locks of her hair that aren’t caught up in the harsh ponytail wrangled to the back of her head. Kageyama shifts against it, curling his toes down into the sand as a tremor works its way down his spine. His own hair is stiff with salt, matted to his forehead; his own breaths are shuddering through his throat as he shoots her a quick nod, head moving sharp and severe. She doesn’t seem to mind the odd way that he moves, rather falling back to the lines  _ someone  _ drew in the sand at  _ some  _ point to mark the edges of their makeshift court without saying another word. On the other side of the net Hinata is engaged in a fervent whispering session with Yachi- though neither is  _ whispering _ , not in any way that counts- complete with big, wide gestures and the stray loud noise. They’re discussing strategy from the sounds of it, the looks of it, something sloppy and strung-together last minute, because this is a casual (casual,  _ casual _ ) game, and every strategy any of them has flung out so far has already buckled beneath its own weight. 

But they still try, behind the curve of Hinata’s fingers and with four eyes darting this way and that. When Kiyoko starts to move though, they react accordingly. Yachi makes the clumsy stumble up to the net, almost tripping over her own two feet and face flushed red with exertion and embarrassment and the slightest brush of a sunburn, and Hinata scuttles to the back line. Yachi gulps as Kiyoko again spins the ball, looking up at Kageyama with eyes fever-bright, broken by bits of nerves and the adrenaline that comes with sports like these. She shifts into place, awkward limbs and jut-out elbows betraying her inexperience- she looks like a newborn fawn. But if nothing else Kageyama can appreciate the sheer speed she’s been learning at, been playing at to keep up with the rest of them, because she’s very smart and very determined and that’s been peeking through the thin veneer of her skin as the day wears on.

She squares her shoulders. Hinata whoops behind her, as excited as Kageyama had been at getting some practice in but even more exuberant, more  _ bright, blasting, blaring  _ by virtue first of them being at the beach, and then by his being  _ Hinata. _ He is shifting restlessly, shrugging his shoulders high then dropping them low as his weight bounces from leg to leg. His neon orange swimming trunks are almost painful to look at, especially when matched with the blinding light of the sun and the shine of his hair and the way he smiles so  _ loudly.  _

“We’ve got this!” he cheers. “C’mon, we got em once, and we’ll get ‘em again!” 

The reminder of the good chunk of points that they do have does seem to get through to Yachi- she looks less scared now, more determined, steely in her spine.

“Hell yeah! Knock ‘em dead, Yacchan, Hinata!” Suga-senpai yells from the sidelines. He is packing sand around Asahi’s legs, even as the other boy whines and groans and turns as pale as a sheet. Suga-senpai has been cheering for both teams since they started, since the moment Hinata had pulled the volleyball from the bag he brought along and almost everyone fixed him with the most intense looks of distaste they could muster while half-drunk off of heat and dizzied by the harsh tang of salt.

Regardless, Suga-senpai says that cheering is good for building team spirit. Kageyama thinks that he just likes to yell. But that doesn’t matter, not right now; because Kiyoko is winding up behind him, and Yachi is squinting her eyes in front of him, and even Hinata’s gone silent somewhere to his right. Kageyama feels the gears that thrum between his ears and behind his eyes shifting into overdrive, blood pumping and hands at the ready as his brain whirs and chirps. The waves are crashing to the shore to fill in the grooves that they’ve already left behind in their scramble to keep the ball in the air, lapping at the edges of his feet- they’re just far enough from the water that the sand is still soft, that they still sink into it with each and every movement, but the tide is coming in. Soon they will have to move.

Kageyama doesn’t care about that right now. Kageyama cares about things that matter, like the sound of Kiyoko’s palm against the volleyball and its small, blotted shadow as it sails over his head, the net,  _ Yachi’s _ head, and finally to Hinata, who is ready and raring on the tips of his toes. The receive is solid enough that Yachi has no trouble sweeping beneath the ball and springing both hands up, pushing from the fingertips and through the foam until it bounces back into the air. One big jump and a bigger swing from Hinata later, the ball shoots again to Kiyoko. She receives it smoothly- she is very good at this, and Kageyama is burning with curiosity- sending it to Kageyama for one last set. So his arms reach high, and his face scrunches in concentration, and-

Kiyoko spikes the ball with a decisive  _ thwap.  _ Yachi scrambles with one arm stretched far in front of her as Hinata zooms up to her side, the ball still falling, falling, falling. Then Yachi stops because Yachi is much too polite to push, and Hinata stops because Hinata is reactionary and Yachi is close, and as they stand frozen for a moment the ball drops to the sand between them. The air goes appropriately electric; a cloud passes over the sun to bathe the scene in shadow, Hinata’s face scrunches around the eyes and screws up at the nose, and Yachi’s fawn-limbs fold to her stomach. Her cheeks goes pale beneath the burgeoning red. Her own eyes are wide.

For a moment, there is silence in the heavy, weighted way; then there is silence in the drawn-out, charged way, then there is no silence at all as the full force of sixteen or so teenagers punches through the air and lands square on Kageyama’s back. Daichi scores one more line in the sand from his spot beneath their umbrella, crossing the four tallies with a fifth and cementing the win. Hinata is rubbing consoling circles on Yachi’s back as she pats at his shoulder, and Nishinoya rounds on the two of them like a shark, hair standing at the ready and hands fluttering here, there and everywhere. It’s really much more excitement than is warranted, and they  _ all  _ know that, all of them, but they’ve been tensed to breaking and strung up through their ears lately, so the screaming and the jumping and the quiet  _ snap snap snap  _ of stress beneath the explosion of exuberance is really something he should have expected.

So Kageyama lets himself smile the best that he can as he turns to Kiyoko. His shoulders are tense; his mouth is stretched too far, he knows, and his teeth are showing in the way that makes people shudder at him in stores, but Kiyoko doesn’t mind at all. She offers a small smile of her own and holds out a fist. Kageyama stares at it for a moment. Then a moment more, because suddenly he’s forgotten how his arms move and his muscles have loosed themselves from his bones and the air’s gone painful and angry, like it’s filled with thousands of tiny needles. Fist bumps, like high fives, are their own unique brand of  _ terrifying  _ to him; no matter how he does them, whether he holds his hands high or low, whether he pushes his elbows into it or keeps his torso stock-still, he is wrong. He is wrong, he is wrong.

His smile becomes more fixed, and he figures that  _ well he’s really kinda running out of time,  _ and then just sort of… goes for it.

He does not use enough force. It is awkward. The joy at their win was short-lived and sharp, and now it is dwindling into a knot inside of his stomach that expands and billows and poking up into his throat, hitching on his vowels and hissing through his teeth. 

“You did,” he says, because he is a glutton for punishment, and he has to make up for himself, “You… you um. Did. You did good.”

“ _ Good _ ?” Nishinoya crows from the other side of the net. Nishinoya is looking at him like he’s taken personal offense, which knowing Nishinoya, and knowing Nishinoya as Kageyama does, he might. “She did amazing! Absolutely amazing! As to be expected from Shimizu-san!”

He shoots her a wink and two finger guns, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth and looking absolutely thrilled when she pays him no mind at all. Kageyama doesn’t understand Nishinoya, not on any level except on those pertaining to volleyball, and when things like  _ this _ happen, when he gets looks like  _ that  _ on his face, Kageyama thinks that he prefers it that way. If he tried to think like Nishinoya his brain would probably melt to mush and pour from his ears. He would overload within the second, fry to a crisp along the folds of his skin, wobble out from himself to shrivel up in the cool sea air. He would collapse down to a point, and Kageyama doesn’t have the time for that sort of thing- he has games to be playing, matches to win. He’s got important things to do.

True to form, only moments later Nishinoya is off again, bounding back to Yachi and Hinata who have since brushed off their loss and instead have begun helping Suga-senpai pack sand up around Asahi’s torso. Yachi is apologizing profusely, even as she adds scoops handfuls and plasters them to the pile; she squeaks out sorry after sorry, and then Asahi apologizes for her feeling like she needs to apologize, and then Yachi apologizes again on instinct, and then they look each other straight in the eye for one moment of deep, aching empathy before locking themselves into desperate a loop of  _ sorry! Sorry! Sorry! _

Kageyama doesn’t know what to make of any of them, ever. And that frustrates him, it  _ does,  _ because understanding would make his life quite a bit easier, but today is supposed to be a  _ fun  _ day so instead of forcing himself to ruminate on it, instead of forcing himself into circles, or a spiral that throws him in and out and in and but gives him no answers at all, he turns away. He looks down at his hands. He feels the sun beat itself into his neck and back, hears the sounds of the water and the babbling of his teammates, and tries to stuff his breaths back into his lungs. Then, when he’s nearly, almost, not-quite got it, somebody puts their hand on his shoulder. It’s enough to jolt him back up from the slow simmer he had settled into, head whipping up at the unexpected contact and mind descending into a mass of confusion and floaty question marks when he sees Kiyoko, eyes still hidden behind her sunglasses and hands pushing something into Kageyama’s own.

He takes it without too much thought. He does most things without too much thought- he likes to think that he’s saving up for things that really matter, like playing volleyball, or watching volleyball, or choosing what to get from the vending machine. He prioritizes, like his mother always taught him to; he puts himself to good use.

“You also did well,” she says. Kageyama has to scramble for a moment before remembering that  _ yes, yes he had said something like that to her. _

“Oh. Um. Thanks, I guess.”

He takes a swig from the waterbottle she had given him, plastic scraping against his teeth and liquid filling his mouth. It’s warm and he cringes as he pulls the back of his hand across his face, shuddering in disgust. Then he takes another drink, even though he  _ really  _ doesn’t want to, because Kiyoko is still standing right beside him, own waterbottle clutched in hand and head tilted down towards the sand, and he needs to buy himself some time to think. She’s catching her breath, lungs hitching and hiccuping in her chest as she lets out a series of half-breaths, quiet little exhales that get swallowed up by the waves the moment she makes them. Above them, the sun shines. The sand is gritty.

And what little wit Kageyama had left goes dry beneath the weight of the humidity. His mind is blank and his tongue is heavy; it is after a game, and Kageyama without volleyball is a Kageyama who’s still struggling to fit himself to a reason, to a rhythm, to a rhyme. 

And the easiest way to deal with that, he figures, the easiest way to seem natural and express admiration is just to… bring volleyball back into things.

“Do you,” he starts, and his mind erases itself, “Do you play volleyball? Or did you? You looked good before. Your serves were good. So do you?”

“I’ve never played volleyball on team,” Kiyoko replies smoothly.“I learned largely from watching you guys play- I was curious, and I had the resources. So I tried, when I could.” She shrugs, in a way that still looks effortlessly graceful. Kageyama is jealous. Off of the court he bumbles and blathers around, fails to look at people at  _ all _ and instead gets caught up in thoughts of how the exact colors of the boundary lines on any given court change from gym to gym. Sometimes they’re white, sometimes they’re red, sometimes they’re black and blue- how is it decided? School colors? Personal preference?

Kageyama doesn’t know. 

“Ah,” he says. And now for the real questions. The meat of the matter. “Would you ever want to play on a team? You’re a third year and the girl’s team at Karasuno has already finished their season, but maybe in college you could join a club or something like the neighborhood association, or  _ the  _ neighborhood association, or even just a local league, I know about all the ones in this area, and no matter where you end up going to school there’s always tons of places that could use a player like you.“

He takes a deep breath in, ready to prattle onwards with his spiel, when Kiyoko beats him to it.

“Ah. That’s um, very nice of you Kageyama, but-“ she stops for a moment, pulling her bottom lip up between her teeth and biting hard enough that the skin goes pale. “-I’m not interested in picking up a sport right now.”

“Oh.”

Shame fills his stomach, and he looks down to the ground. At least he’ll be able to pass off the red poking through his cheeks as a sunburn, if it comes to that- either a sunburn or the sudden, stubborn onset of a fever. When he does chance another look at Kiyoko, he thinks for a moment that he sees her eyebrows twist and the corner of her mouth spasm in the same way that he does when he’s been thrown into a stream of self-flagellation. But that can’t be right- Kiyoko isn’t anything like Kageyama, especially not like that. Or at least he doesn’t  _ think _ so.

“Well-“ Kiyoko says suddenly, voice sparking in the silence and her own face flushed as she speaks very, very quickly, “-it’s not that volleyball isn’t a very impressive sport. I wouldn’t be  _ opposed _ to playing it, and of course I think very highly of its players, but I think it would be rather irresponsible of me to try and join a team right now. I really do appreciate your offer to assist me, but with the increased workload in college, I imagine it would be difficult for me to be a reliable teammate. I wouldn’t be able to honor my commitment, and I prefer to be able to honor my commitments when I can.”

She nods once, definitively, and Kageyama blinks. 

“Oh,” he repeats, less shameful this time but much more confused. “Um. That’s nice?”

“Yes.” Kiyoko nods again. “It is.”

Then they stand in silence. For one moment, two moments, three. 

“I ran track in middle school,” Kiyoko offers. “I stopped in high school because I needed more time to study. That’s why I don’t want to join another sports team, not yet.”

Kageyama’s head bobbles upwards. Track? Track’s not volleyball, not even close, but it’s a sport, and some sports he can talk about.

“Track?”

“Yes.”

Track.

“Were you any good?”

Kageyama internally winces a bit at that. Then he pushes that wince to the side and forges onwards, because they’ve been talking for long enough now that if Kiyoko were going to uppercut him into the sun she would have done so already.

“Good enough, I think. I especially enjoyed the hurdles.”

“Really?”

“Definitely. I liked the feel of them. The challenge they provided.”

Some very far, dim corner of Kageyama’s brain lights up in recognition. From there it spreads through his skull, between his lungs and to his arms and legs. Soon he feels like he’s buzzing with excitement or anticipation or any of the hundred things in between, because  _ something somewhere  _ has just clicked, and he finally feels like this conversation is one that he could participate in. Kiyoko likes to be challenged! He likes to be challenged! He’s made a connection!

“Challenges are good,” he says to communicate this, all of this all at once. “They’re necessary for improvement and good for motivation. Without challenges, you wouldn’t know what sort of training to do to help yourself be better.”

“That’s a nice way of looking at things,” Kiyoko replies. “Improvement is an admirable goal.”

“Thank you,” Kageyama repeats. He realizes immediately that that was not the right thing to say; he realizes soon thereafter that he does not care. “I think that the center of all sports is improvement. Including track. Especially volleyball.”

“Definitely,” Kiyoko agrees. “Winning was always nice of course, but so was looking back and being able to see how far I had come.”

She nods. He nods. Together they stand and together they nod.

Oh, they’re doing so fucking  _ good. _

So good, in fact, that the next few seconds of complete silence are only somewhat as awkward as the first go around. Not nearly as stifling, as stuffy, not painful in the way that makes his skin feel tight around his eyes and his mouth purse like that of a fish. Not even as uncomfortable as standing in the sand, grains stuck to his shins and hollow beneath his knee. In fact Kageyama would have been happy enough to stand right there and look vaguely menacing, vaguely confused, but then Kiyoko tightens her grip around her waterbottle and looks (Kageyama imagines- he still can’t see through those sunglasses) right into Kageyama’s eyes.

“There’s a stand by the entrance. They sell food. I can get you something, if you would like to celebrate our win,” she tells him, paying no mind to the suddenness or the way that Kageyama startles, a tiny flinch in his shoulders. Somewhere in the distance, he can hear both Nishinoya and Tanaka gasping and sobbing and throwing themselves down into the sand. Kageyama ignores them again- they’re very  _ loud- _ in favor of mulling slowly over Kiyoko’s offer _ . _

“Alright,” he decides on eventually, because he doesn’t quite understand why this seems to be such a big deal. “We can talk more about track, if you want.”

“Or volleyball,” Kiyoko offers. 

“Or volleyball.”

They both go for another smile, Kiyoko looking borderline pained, and Kageyama unfortunate and sharp in a manner best described as wolfish. Both of them consider this to be a very nice gesture- smiling is, after all, something that can be very  _ difficult.  _ But they’re trying. That, Kageyama thinks as Kiyoko troops off beneath their umbrella to swing her bag up and over her shoulder before they set off, is by  _ far  _ the most important thing here.

That, and the promise of getting to talk about volleyball.

As always.

**Author's Note:**

> Please consider leaving a comment if you made it this far!!!! I love hearing from you guys!!!


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